My Little Sister Part 29

I went with him as far as the gate.

He walked with head bent, and eyes that saw things hidden from me.

Already he was back in the Bungalow.

I felt the misery of being deserted. But I felt, too, the strong intelligence, the iron purpose, in the man. And though I was torn and aching, I was proud. For all my jealousy, as I saw the mouth so firm-set under the red-brown thatch, saw the colour in his face, something reached me, too, of the heat of this pa.s.sion to find out--something of the absorption of the man of science in his task. Here was the new kind of soldier going to his post.

I held out my hand. "Good luck!"

He took it, then dropped it quickly.

And quickly, without once looking back, he walked away.

I watched him hurrying across the links till one of the heath hollows swallowed him up.

As I turned to go back to my thyme-planting, I heard the dog-cart rattling along the stony road.

Madame Aurore!

I never finished planting the thyme.

CHAPTER XXIV

MADAME AURORE

Madame Aurore was little and wasted and shrill.

She had deep scars in her neck, and dead-looking yellow hair.

She was drenched in cheap scent.

Her untidy, helter-skelter dress gave no hint of the admirable taste she lavished upon others.

She saw at once what we ought to have, and she talked about our clothes with an enthusiasm as great as Betty's own.

"Ah, but _Madame_!" she remonstrated dramatically, when my mother showed her the new white satin, which was for me, and a creamy lace gown which was to be modernised for Bettina--"not _bot_ vhite!"

My mother explained that my gown was to have rose-coloured garnis.h.i.+ng.

"Mais non! mais _non_!" Madame must pardon her for the liberty, but she, Madame Aurore, could not bring herself to see our chief advantage thrown away.

What, then, was our chief advantage? Betty demanded.

What indeed, but the contrast between us. The moment she laid eyes on the hair of Mademoiselle Bettina she had said to herself: the frock of Mademoiselle Bettina should be that tender green of tilleul--with just a note of bleu de ciel. Oh, a dress of spring-time--an April dress, a gay little dress, for all its tenderness! A dress to make happy the heart of all who look thereon.

But "green!" We had sent all the way to London for the white satin, and we had no green.

Then 'twas in truth une bonne chance that Madame Aurore _had_! She often bought up bargains and gave her clients an opportunity to acquire them.

She rushed out of the room, and returned with a piece of silk chiffon of the most adorable hue. She showed us the effect over white satin. My satin. But then, as Madame Aurore said, we could so easily send to Stagg and Mantle's for more.

She looked at me out of snapping black eyes--eyes like animated boot-b.u.t.tons. "Yes, yes; for you, Mademoiselle, ze note sall be serenite ... hein? Zis priceless old lace over ivory satin. Ah...." She struck an att.i.tude. "I _see_ it. So ... and so. A ceinture panne, couleur de feuille d'automne touched with gold broderie. Hein? Oh, very distingue, hein?"

"It must not be expensive"; we had to say that to Madame Aurore all that first day, at regular intervals. But she had her way. She sewed hard, and she chattered as hard as she sewed.

Bettina ran across her in the pa.s.sage that first evening as Madame Aurore came up from supper. And they began instantly on the fruitful theme of "green gown." My mother called out to Bettina that she had talked enough about clothes for one day, and in any case she had left us to go early to bed. Bettina regretted her rash promise--wasn't the least tired, and could have talked clothes till c.o.c.k-crow! There was some argument on this head at the door, in which Madame Aurore joined, with too great a freedom, and an elaborate air of ranging herself on my mother's side. This pleased, least of all, the person Madame Aurore designed to propitiate.

Madame Aurore, I am sure, had not been in the house an hour before she had taken the measure of our main preoccupation. Mademoiselle Bettina ought to be grateful, she said, to have a mother so devoted, so solicitous. Standing near the open door, she piled up an exaggerated case of maternal love. There was nothing in life like the love between mother and child. Ah, didn't she know! Her own little girl----

My mother said she must have the door shut now, and I was sent to undo Betty's gown.

Bettina thought it angelic of Madame Aurore not to resent our mother's lack of interest in the small Aurore. According to Bettina, Madame showed a wonderfully nice disposition in not withdrawing her interest from us after that. She seemed rather to imply: very well, you don't care about my child ... but I am still ready to care about yours.

"Parfaitement!" ... the little dressmaker remembered Bettina's pa.s.sing Dew Pond House the summer before. It was true what Hermione had reported. Madame Aurore had leaned out of the window to watch Bettina.

She had even expressed the wish that she might have the dressing of cette jolie enfant.

Oh, but life was a droll affair!

Bettina thought it entirely delightful. She went about the house singing. The first time Madame Aurore heard Bettina she arrested the rapid stab of her basting needle: "Who ees dat?"

"That is my youngest daughter."

"She tink to go on ze stage?"

"Oh, no."

"Not? It ess a vast, zat."

She was always cold.

Whenever we were out of the morning-room she piled on the coal. On the second day I remonstrated. Fuel, I explained, was very expensive so far from the coal-fields. She smiled. "You are ze careful one, hein?" and she looked at me in a way which made me uncomfortable.

But I did not feel about the poor little creature as my mother did.

My mother went so far as to wish we had not sent for her. She would never have allowed her to come if she had seen her first. I thought my mother severe.

Everybody else, including the servants, liked Madame Aurore. No wonder.

She spent her life doing things for people. Sewing for us all day like mad, so that our two best frocks might be finished in spite of the shortness of the time; and still ready at nightfall to show the cook how to make p't.i.te marmite, or sauce a la financiere--equally ready to advise the housemaid how to give the Bond Street, not to say the Rue de la Paix, touch to her Sunday alpaca, and chic to old Ransom's beehive hat.

If she asked them one and all more questions in a minute than they could answer in a month, what did that show but the generous interest she took in her fellow-beings?

Bettina, with her little air of large experience, said that Madame Aurore was the most "sympathetic" person she had ever met. Madame Aurore's benevolent concern about our clothes, our soups, sauces, and servants, and everything that was ours, extended to our friends and relations and everything that was theirs. She had never, she said, known people--let alone such charming people as we--with so few acquaintances.

Bettina thought Madame Aurore was sorry for us.